


Insult to Injury

by Dorkangel



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: But Don't Tell Pietro, Calm Down Erik, Erik is a Father, From a prompt, Gen, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Logan Knows the Future, Lorna and Pietro are bros, Stryker is a douche, Xavier Institute, i can't tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:37:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2547722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1974, a year after the events of Days of Future Past.<br/>But, unfortunately, William Stryker has got a list of mutants to try as eliminate, and Peter Maximoff is at the top...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insult to Injury

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from NoName on AO3:
> 
> I love your work and I'm glad to finally find an author as obsessed with Pietro as I am :)!!!! I had an idea for a story and thought of throw it out there. If you hate the idea feel free to ignore it and I won't be offended. I wanted a story where someone finds out about Pietro breaking Erik out of the pentagon and about his mutation. So a group of mutant haters show up at his house (preferably when he's home alone) to try and kill him. They unload a gun into his leg like four times so he can't run but, in his adrenaline filled moment of panic, he sprints anyway, ending up at the mansion. There he gets help from Charles, Hank, Alex, and Erik (no beach divorce). If you give it a shot ill love you forever!! :)
> 
> 'No one tells me what to do', I say, and obediently write the bloody fic.

Newly Built Facility at Alkali Lake,  
1974

The list of mutants that the government had on record was sketchy, and a little... unfinished, but, still, it existed. Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr were, of course, right at the top of the list, but that was besides the point, since Xavier was currently being spied on by seven separate secret services (that they were aware of) and Lehnsherr was quite literally the world's most wanted man.  
Unfortunately, after the events at the White House last year, the government had 'made its peace' with mutants and had effectively crushed any attempts at registration or systematic cataloging.  
That hadn't stopped William Stryker.  
Trask was right, he had realised. The only way to defend people against these... things ...was to study them, understand them.  
And he had just enough backing from worried humans to get away with it.

The list went something like this:  
Xavier, C.  
Lehnsherr, E.  
McCoy, H.  
'Mystique' - ID unknown  
Summers, A.  
'Quicksilver' - ID unknown  
Quested, J.  
Cassidy, S. [DECEASED]  
Frost, E. [DECEASED]  
'Azazel' - ID unknown [DECEASED]  
Salvadore, A. [DECEASED]  
Kennedy, J. [DECEASED]  
And went on, to suspected mutants and mutants with powers that seemed pretty harmless. But Stryker didn't want to think about the harmless ones now; he sat down at his desk, smiling darkly, and pulled a file from his draw- the one marked 'Quicksilver'. The only photo they had of him was an extremely blurred shot taken accidentally by a Pentagon guard as he fell over with a camera in his pocket, dressed all in silver and apparently halfway up a wall. The descriptions of him were what they'd gotten from guards as well, but it wasn't exactly detailed. A teenage boy, dark eyes, silver hair, silver jacket, dangerous when armed with duct tape. Not exactly priority, since he hadn't killed, or even made any attempt to kill, anyone, but immensely powerful.  
And, just that day, Stryker had managed to match him to a police record.  
'Pietro Maximoff', read the file, along with a mugshot that matched all the descriptions. It was even blurred a little, like he had been moving as it was taken, and he distractedly didn't look directly at the camera. '28 counts of petty theft, 6 grand thefts, unconfirmed but suspect in more than 58 cases, including but not limited to 3 bank robberies. No time spent in prison yet, mainly due to his mother bailing him out.  
Statement from Maximoff:  
'I just, I dunno, man, if it's shiny or expensive and I just want it then I just gotta take it, man. There's a name for that, right?'.'  
There was even an address, just outside of Washington D.C.  
Stryker faced a strange decision on this one, though. He was far too powerful to capture without being seriously injured, and he had a family that he could run back to (extremely quickly) if he escaped the facility, unlike most of the mutants that Trask had dissected. No father, just a mother and a little sister (and another sister, not at home), but still.  
So he sent in Zero, with these instructions:  
'Aim to injure, preferably in the legs. If he causes too much trouble, shoot him dead and bring him to the facility for autopsy'.

Peter was actually babysitting his sister when they arrived. His inability to actually get a proper job - not that he couldn't just GET money, from other people's bank vaults, but his mom wouldn't listen - meant that their mom was still working weekends. Also, he was officially grounded and forbidden from having anything to do with 'That dodgy Xavier man' or 'Whatever that bloody mercenary's called' or 'That other nice-looking science fellow' because apparently they'd 'Get you into all kinds of shit- don't give me that look, Pietro, you broke into the Pentagon without even knowing why!'.  
"What d'ya think my powers'll be?" Lorna asked cheerfully from the middle of the living room, ignoring the way he kept zipping around to lie in different and increasingly more contorted positions on the sofas.  
"I don't know," he replied, slightly pissed at not being allowed out, but knowing better than to leave Lorna alone. "Maybe you'll be human."  
"Not likely." she said gravely, holding up the green streak at the front of her mousy hair for him to see. "Mom says that in the future, pretty much everyone'll be a mutant."  
"Yeah, I guess."  
He groaned and moved again so he was lying face down on the couch in front of the window, legs hooked over the back. "Why does time have to move so slooooooowly," he moaned, muffled by a cushion, and Lorna giggled at him.  
And then everything shattered. Zero, spotting the boy from across the street through his sights, had fired off three rapid shots, and they had smashed the window and were lodged in Peter's legs before Lorna even had a chance to blink. One was in his left ankle, the other two in his right shin.  
He yelled and moved, at his unnatural speed, away from the window, pain shooting through his bones, and Lorna started screaming. Zero just grinned and began sprinting towards the house.  
"Peter!" she screeched, her high, childishly girly voice even higher than usual. For a moment he concentrated on gritting his teeth and not bursting into tears as his hands clasped together just under his knee, and then he glanced over at her.  
"It's ok, I'm ok, didn't hit anything vital. See?"  
She was ashen-faced and crying, but stopped screaming at that.  
"I can't stand though," he gasped. "Don't panic, I just can't-"  
They both turned, terrified, towards the door as there was a crashing noise. They had no way of knowing what it was, exactly, but perhaps that was a good thing, since it was Zero smashing their front door down.  
"Lorna," he said, trying to be comforting and stop the little girl from being too scared. "Lorna, come here."  
She ran into his arms frantically and Peter pulled himself upright, biting his lip against the pain, cradled the back of her head and ran as fast as he could up the stairs and into the attic, depositing her up there and kissing her quickly on the brow. She wouldn't feel it until he was long gone, but at least she would feel it. He hurried down the ladder, hyperaware of the door steadily flying open downstairs, pushed it up so fast it left black skid marks on the roof, and finally taped it tightly shut.  
And then collapsed, doubled over on his knees, crying out through pressed-shut lips.  
As he stopped moving and snapped into real time, Zero appeared at the bottom of the steps, grinning sharply and raising another gun, this one loaded with tranquilliser darts.  
Peter's eyes widened and he flew backwards so he was pressed against the wall, gasping as he accidentally put weight on his legs.  
Zero chuckled darkly and sprinted towards the boy, up the stairs, not wanting to give him a chance to avoid the bullet.  
"What the hell do you want?" yelled Peter, and - upstairs - Lorna pressed her ear against the floor in helpless terror to listen.  
Zero, ever the professional, didn't reply, and pressed the barrel of the gun into Peter's neck. The boy took one deep breath, then lunged forward and knocked the assassin out of the way with sheer momentum, half-falling down the steps at about a hundred miles an hour (at little slow, for him, but quite good given the situation) and out of the open door, leaving a tiny streak of blood in his wake.

He knew where Charles Xavier lived, but he'd never tried running there before, especially not like this.  
Turned out it was a long way away. A really, really long way.

Logan was in the middle of having an argument with Charles when Peter arrived. Over bedrooms, naturally.  
"Listen, Chuck," he was growling, albeit friendlily. "You're going to need a hell of a lot more dorms than what you needed before."  
"Look, if you will insist on giving me spoilers," Charles replied, perfectly calm as always, with his fingers steepled in front of him. "Can you please make them slightly less-"  
He cut off with a soft noise, pressing his fingers to his temples. Logan's brow furrowed a bit, but before he had a chance to say anything, Charles gasped again and clutched at his head as though assaulted. He stood up, glancing around, and unsheathed his claws.  
"What is it? Who's there?"  
"No, no, no," Charles murmured. "Calm down, it's not a threat. It's that friend of yours, Peter."  
Logan reluctantly pulled back his claws, but stayed in a position ready to fight.  
"Then what's wrong?"  
"I- oh my god, I think he's been shot."  
The doorbell rang, long and loud like Peter had collapsed on it - which he had - and Logan jumped and ran over to the door, only for the silver-haired speedster to fall exhaustedly into his arms.  
"Hey," he said anxiously, checking the boy's pulse and looking around for any obvious injuries. "Peter, wake up, stay with us."  
"I am with you." mumbled the teenager into his huge bicep. "Just tired."  
"Charles said you'd been shot."  
Peter laughed, slightly hysterically. "Yeah. Thought this'd be a safe place."  
"It is." replied Logan firmly. "Always has been, always will be. C'mon."

Hank fixed the kid up easily enough, even if Peter's astonishing metabolism did require a ridiculous amount of drugs to keep him under. Charles sat by their side while he did, examining Peter's memories of what'd happened, but Logan just marched off upstairs to find a phone.  
Damn seventies, he thought to himself grumpily. To make a phone call any time after 2000, all you had to do was fish it out of your pocket. You'd think the professor'd have more than two of them in all his huge mansion.  
How Logan got Magneto's number is a long story, and one involving a very confusing conversation with Charles and the older Summers brother, but there's no time to explain that now.  
He dialled Magneto. Mystique picked up, voice angry and bored as it had been since she started hanging out with him again.  
"Hello, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants headquarters. To arrange a meeting with Mr. Erik-Oh-I'm-So-Clever-And-I-Have-Such-A-Good-Sense-Of-Style Lehnsherr, press one. To kill all the humans, press-"  
"Give it a rest, Raven," he grumbled. "I need to talk to Magnets."  
"Well, you can't. He's busy."  
Logan punched the wall in frustration. "Really. What's he doing?"  
He could practically hear her grinning. "He's drunk. Listen."  
She held the phone up and he could hear a very heavily German accented 'I can't live if living is without you' sung in a slurred voice, followed by, 'Ahaha, Charles, whyyyyy!'.  
Logan rolled his eyes. "Look, when he sobers up, could you just tell him that his son has been shot and is currently lying in the medical wing at the school."  
"What?"  
"His son's hurt and he's here, and Erik needs to get his ass here. Got it?"  
She hesitated, then stammered out an, "O-Ok."  
Logan hung up.

Magneto walked into the door and was frozen immediately by Charles, one hand to his temple.  
"Hello, old friend." said Charles, mock-cheerfully, from his wheelchair.  
Erik sent him a greeting back.  
"Awfully sorry, but I'm going to make you go away now." continued Charles. "Because, no offence, but you're a prick."  
"Wait." Erik managed to grate out aloud. "It's about Peter."  
Charles's eyebrows shot up. "Well, in that case, doubly go away, he's a teenager and there's no way I'm going to allow you to recruit him to-"  
"S'ok, bub," growled Logan from the doorframe, where he was leaning. "I called him."  
Charles sent him a slightly outraged glare, and Logan's eyes narrowed in response to the challenge. "Look, I know you two are busy having a domestic, or whatever it is, but I thought he'd got a right to know that Peter's here."  
"Why?" yelled both Charles and Erik at once, then glared at each other.  
Logan levelled his gaze at them, unimpressed. "You knew a woman called Magda, right?"  
Something like old hurt flickered across Erik's face. "...yes."  
"Yeah, well, when you two broke up, she was pregnant. Specifically, with Speedy and his twin sister."  
The eyes of everyone around widened, and the blood drained out of Erik's face. Logan just snorted.  
"You gonna come see him or not? It's not like you haven't met him before."  
"Not in this context!" Erik spluttered.  
"Don't worry about it," added Logan. "The kid doesn't know."  
Erik shot a barbed glance at Charles, who threw his hands up in exasperation.  
"I'm a telepath, that doesn't mean I know everything! I don't just go around other people's minds casually, like Frost-"  
Erik stormed past him, with the air of someone who had had this argument before. Logan frowned at Charles.  
"Who's Frost?"  
"Emma Frost, telepath, general bitch." replied Charles through gritted teeth, hurrying after Erik.

Peter was sitting on the edge of the bed when they arrived, having a heated conversation about music with Hank. Hank didn't appear to know much about what Peter was talking about, but in fairness, Peter was talking quite quickly.  
Hank's first reaction, when Erik walked in, was to shake his head in a firmly professional manner.  
"You can't be here. Get out."  
Peter, meanwhile, flitted over to the opposite end of the bed, as far from Erik as possible, and drew his knees up to his chest.  
"Uh huh, you really can't, 'cos, like, I'm banned from terrorism. Forever. I'm also supposed to be grounded, but this freaky looking assassin dude broke into my house and shot me, so I think my mom'll let me off." he babbled nervously.  
"I've met your mother, actually." replied Erik mildly, sitting where Peter had been a couple of seconds ago. Hank's eyes narrowed.  
"Erik, go away."  
"I've told him that," said Charles from the doorway. "He won't listen."  
"If you've met her, you should know that she will totally kick my ass if I hang out with you. I keep saying I'm an adult and all, but she just waves it off and says I'm an adult when I make my own decisions and since I live with her I still have to be grounded and look after Lorna and- ohshitshitshit-"  
Peter, finishing off another rant, started running towards the door, only for Logan to catch him with a muffled 'Oof!' and Charles to make him walk back to the bed.  
"Dude, that is not fair", continued Peter, once they'd let him go. "Besides, I've gotta call my sister, she's alone and she's only seven-"  
"I've got it covered." reassured Charles, while Erik leaned over to Logan and hissed 'Sister?'.  
"Not yours." muttered Logan back. "Far as I know."  
"Right."  
"Could be, though."  
"Huh?"  
"What're you even here for?" interrupted Peter, staring in confusion at Erik.  
"I... Your abilities," covered the metal-bender smoothly. "They were incredibly useful."  
Peter laughed weakly. "Sorry, bro, not joining your 'Brotherhood'. I saw all that shit on TV live, y'know? I think you looked a lot crazier than you realise, man-"  
"Well, thanks for the breakout, anyway." covered Erik quickly, standing up, and ignoring the way Logan chuckled.  
Peter shrugged. "It was cool and all, but - not gonna lie - kinda regretting it now. No offence. Also, someone shot me over it."  
Erik's brow furrowed. "Who shot you?"  
"Dunno, some creepy Asian dude. Sorta curly hair, black clothes, smiled a bit, that was scary. Had a lotta guns. Like, a LOT."  
Logan's head cocked to one side at the familiarity of the description, and then a kind of smouldering rage lit up in his eyes.  
"Zero." he growled.  
Erik turned to him, one eyebrow raised. "Excuse me?"  
"Agent Zero. I know that guy."  
"Is he a total grade A douche?" asked Peter hopefully.  
"Yeah. He's human, I think. Just real good with guns."  
"Mutant hater?" asked Hank, slightly shyly. Logan nodded grimly.  
"Works for William Stryker, one of his very first recruits. Didn't realise he was live this early, though."  
Logan chuckled fondly. "Snapped his neck myself, actually. The idiot kept trying to bump me off."  
"These guns of his," asked Erik slyly, turning back to Peter. "Were they made of metal?"  
The teenager made a punching gesture. "Kick his ass, magnet-o."  
Erik snorted in his approximation of laughter, and nodded, turning to go.  
"Whoa, hold up," came Peter's voice behind him again. "How did you say you knew my mother?"  
The eyes of the adults around the room flickered towards each other for a moment.  
"Long story." conceded Erik eventually. "Tell her I said hi."  
Peter shrugged. "Will do."  
As Erik started hovering, moving ominously towards an open window, Charles wheeled himself toward Peter.  
"So, I was wondering if you had thought about becoming a student..."


End file.
